Review of Left Behind: The Story of the New Orleans Public Schools

This film by first time directors Morelli and Berry accomplished what few documentaries ever do, it captured dramatic action happening within an enormous, corrupt system in real time. The film definitively shows the Pre-Katrina New Orleans public school system as the dysfunctional, corrupt, and stagnating mess that is was. The directors followed students as they tried to navigate the violence of their home lives and neighborhoods in some of NOLAs most destitute wards, and contrasts that chaos with the bureaucratic chaos of the New Orleans School Board -- I came away thinking it might be safer on the city's most dangerous streets than in some of the outrageous school board meetings (which are all caught on tape). This film follows the city's last attempt to resurrect its corpse of a public school system with a new superintendent, hailed as a messiah that will finally fix the city's broken schools. We watch as this great white hope goes down in flames, and despite this being their Freshman production, the directors tell this darkly Shakespearean true story gloriously. This film serves as an extraordinary record and time capsule. Hurricane Katrina hit only months after filming, and New Orleans schools are now almost 100% charter schools. Left Behind is a stark reminder of why that may be for the best.